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January 31, 2010

Stand Up, Stand For, Stand With

Practicing Peace: The Call for a Nonviolent Witness in the 21st Century
Week Three: Stand Up, Stand For, Stand With
January 31, 2010: Luke 6:27-36, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

This morning we are in week three of our sermon series, Practicing Peace—the call for a nonviolent witness in the 21st century. Week one, I shared a brief historical overview of the western Christian church. Week two, I encouraged you to think about your own life and what you desire for yourself and your family. We heard about two ordinary women, whose Christian witness for peace has made an amazing difference in our world today.

I also want to remind you that our Biblical text for this series is Luke chapter 6, Jesus’ sermon on the plain and the surrounding events as recorded in Luke’s gospel. How is it that ordinary people are able to make a nonviolent witness? One of the necessary characteristics is courage. It takes courage to work for peace…

April grew up in the church. She participated in all aspects of Christian life—summer Bible camp, Sunday school, mission trips, and youth group. When she was a senior at Carleton College in Minnesota, April was elected president of her campus Christian group. It was during this year, that a mosque in the Twin Cities suffered an arson attach. The imam reached out to religious leaders across Minnesota asking them to stand with his community against religious discrimination.

April had many friends who were Muslims from her numerous mission trips to Russia. After hearing about the attack, she felt strongly that the Christian witness would be to stand with the imam and his congregation in the aftermath of this violent act against them. When April presented the idea at the next meeting of her campus Christian group, she was surprised by their unanimous response—cold, unsympathetic silence. One person spoke for the group, “Why are you asking us to support devil worship?”

Unable to see anything that connected them to the Muslims—religious freedom, people of faith, God’s children—the campus Christian group chose to add bricks to an ever-growing barrier between Muslims and Christians.

On the other hand, April went to the rally in support of the mosque and the Muslim people who worshipped there. The campus Christian group voted to remove April as president. April had the courage to stand up against the peer pressure of her group. April had the courage to identify her desire to stand for religious freedom. Lastly, she had the courage to stand with people who were often identified as the enemy.

Unfortunately, the louder Christian witness around this event was one of applause as prominent Christian leaders promoted fear and hate. And the majority of Christians helped add brick upon brick as the barrier between Muslims and Christians continues to grow. But April and others like her, had the courage to make a different statement—her Christian upbringing inspired her to build bridges of understanding and cooperation with people who are different instead of barriers or bombs. (1)

How did April have the courage to do this?
1. She had moved beyond her comfort zone by actually building relationships with Muslims in Russia. She did not see Muslims as the enemy to be feared but as people just like her who were trying to make a life for themselves.

2. She was influenced more by Jesus’ teachings of love thy neighbor rather than the larger Christian hate-based peer pressure. She was not afraid of what the campus Christians might do in response to her actions.

3. She trusted God. Even though this was new territory for her, April was not afraid. She trusted God to give her the courage to follow her heart and be a practitioner of peace.

To be a practitioner of peace, a follower of Jesus, requires courage, especially as we read today’s gospel lesson….Love your enemy, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
There’s so much in this lesson that requires courage. Let’s look at this idea of loving our enemy…

Before we can love this enemy we need to identify them don’t we? Who is our enemy?

For many of us, our enemy can be our competition for something we want—a job, contract, promotion, children;
someone we don’t know or who looks different;
someone who practices a different religion or politics;
someone who is trying to harm us (personally or because of our group affiliation).

If we had to boil it all down, we could say this. An enemy is someone who threatens our security and thus is someone to be feared. Jesus invites us rather than to fear our enemy we need to love them. And it as we attempt to love this person, that our fears subside and we are able to begin building peace.

If we are to have peace in our lives we need to let go of our fear of others. Let go of our fear of those who are different than us. Let go of our fear of those who threaten our way of life, our security. How do we do this? First, we must let go of this label of enemy. Why is this person my enemy? What is it about this person that makes me fearful? Are my fears based on God’s truth or human lies?

Take the example of April and her peer group of campus Christians. To April a Muslim is a person who practices the religion of Islam. She knows this because she has met Muslim people and her experience validates this. To the rest of her group a Muslim is an enemy of a Christian because they “worship the devil.” Just as we would not want every Christian to be described by the worst actions of any Christian, so we cannot paint all people from one group with the same brush. Also, when we step out from behind fear, we offer a different Christian witness that is based on love, not fear. We need to move beyond labels and get to know each other as children of God.

Second, we must become willing to depend on God alone for our security—not the police, government, not our family, and not our own ability to accumulate wealth and run our lives. When we are able to trust God for our well-being, fear loses its ability to control us and we are free to practice peace.

In the summer of 1778, a British battleship intent on plunder sailed into Nantucket harbor and aimed its guns at the largely Quaker community. One of the Quaker elders, William Rotch, made his way out to the dock and invited the British commander to his home for dinner. It was an uncomfortable meal for the British commander because of the generous, sincere hospitality of his hosts, Mr. & Mrs. Rotch.

As the meal ended, the commander announced that the plunder must begin at once. Mr. Rotch asked the commander to begin with his home as he was a successful businessman and able to absorb the loss better than some of his neighbors. The commander was shocked at this unselfish gesture. He asked if there were other people like the Rotch family, and so he was given a tour of the town. After meeting some of the other generous folks who lived there, the commander returned to his battleship and sailed away. (2)

When faced with a frightening situation, we have a variety of ways to respond. To respond out of faith, not fear, is the beginning of loving our enemy. The British commander did not see the Quaker colonists exclusively as enemies. Having met them face to face, he now had to decide if he could carry out his original plans to plunder the enemy. He found he could not.

Institutions can mandate that we treat each other as enemies. It is easier to do when we see each other from a distance, in a group of them, rather than as people like us. And until individuals take it upon themselves to choose a different way to live, things will not change.

If we will choose the option to love our enemy as Jesus proposes, we will begin to see in each other our common humanity, desires and needs. As we do this, our idea of “the enemy” will shift. By keeping us afraid of each other, the power brokers in this world and the forces of evil keep us from coming together to work for a better world for all people, one of peace and nonviolence.

Ask yourself this...
Is the enemy the kid selling drugs on the corner or a society that is all too willing to write off ethnic minority or problem children?
Is the enemy the young adult who replaces us at work for ½ our salary or a financial system where companies are pressured to report positive quarterly earnings so stock prices will rise?
Is the enemy the latest group of immigrants or a global economy where less than 10% of the people use 85% of all the resources?

Maybe our real enemies are not each other but oppressive systems; corrupt, brutal regimes, and corporations who don’t care who or what they destroy as long as they are making lots of money.

Hunger, homelessness, poverty, greed, torture, war, racism, classism, sexism and indifference—these are the real enemies of humanity. When we are willing to step into the gaps that these “enemies” produce, reaching out to our neighbor in loving kindness, then peace will become a reality in our world.

It takes courage to Stand Up, Stand For, and Stand With. We take heart that we are not alone in this quest. Many people have gone before us and continue the work of peace today. Each day when we take a step toward loving our enemy, away from hatred and misunderstanding, we take a step for peace.

What would it be for us to stand up to oppressive systems, corrupt regimes, and money-grubbing corporations that attempt to keep us quiet, fearful or comfortable? Some of these systems are close to our heart as in the case of Sister Mary Lou Kownacki.

In 1979 when Pope John Paul II visited Washington DC, he addressed a catholic organization called Women Religious. There were hundreds of Catholic women at this event. And in the crowd were 24 Catholic sisters, wearing blue arm bands. These 24 nuns were to stand when the Pope spoke to protest the treatment of women in the Catholic church. Sister Mary Lou remembers being really nervous, more nervous than any other nonviolent protest she’d ever done—including going to El Salvador or standing in front of the White House.

The head of Women Religions, Sister Kane, spoke immediately before the Pope. Her impassioned speech called for equality in the church. Sister Mary Lou turned to the sister next to her and said, “We don’t have to stand now. She said everything for us.” But her colleague in arms pulled Sister Mary Lou to her feet and they stood in silent protest as the Pope spoke to the gathering. Sister Mary Lou said in hindsight, she’s glad she stood. It was hard but the right thing to do. (3)

A well-known UM pastor likes to say, “If you aren’t nauseous when you think about the ministry God is directing you take, it’s not God’s ministry. It’s your own.”
In that same vein, when we begin to stand up against injustice and other enemies in our world, we will be nervous, maybe even nauseous. Because in some cases, we may be called to stand up against those systems and institutions that we supported and participated in for so long.

When it comes to your security and the security of your family, what are you most afraid of? Does it have to do with your children, your home, hunger, your job? (pause)

Is this the area that God is inviting to you serve? Is God inviting you to minister in this area so that others who are experiencing what you fear can be brought to wholeness and peace?

The thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians is often read at weddings. The paradox here is that the love Paul is writing about is a love that we cannot manifest on our own. It must be God’s love, flowing through us into the lives of others. And this love is not a flimsy, soft kind of love. It is a courageous love, as witnessed in Jesus. This kind of love is manifested when we walk with each other side by side.

Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; and pray for those who abuse you.

This week let’s
1. attempt to move beyond our comfort zone and build a relationship with someone we might normally fear.
2. Follow Jesus’ teaching of love even in the face of peer pressure and fear.
3. Place ourselves in the secure and loving arms of God—trust God with all we’ve got!

If we can begin to do some of this, we will be able to offer those who frighten or anger us Christ’s love. And over time, we will be surprised as we discover a growing peace inside that is beyond our understanding…

Footnotes:
(1) Story adapted from article entitled, “Beyond Barrier, Bubble or Bomb” written by Eboo Patel in Sojourners Magazine. January 2010.
(2) Practicing Peace by Catherine Whitmire. ©2007 Catherine Whitmire. Published by Sorin Books (pg. 87).
(3) The Nonviolent Movement by Mary Lou Kownacki, OSB. © 2002 Pax Christi USA (pg. 71

Posted by vickie at 10:00 AM